A blustery day...

Today would definitely qualify as a blustery day! In fact, we are having a severe weather watch and high gusting winds for the next 36 hours! Weather.com says this storm will have stronger winds than the last 4 hurricanes in the Atlantic! I guess I'll be parking the car in the garage today, wouldn't want a tree to get uprooted and scratch my car! I am happy to report that we have excellent windows though. They are dual pane, storm windows and I am not feeling even a slight draft in the house. :) That makes me hopeful for winter.

Also, as promised, here is proof that my baby is now mobile. For the record, I did not teach her this. In fact, I am rather put out that she can move as well as she does, I was sort of hoping for a little more time before I had to start baby proofing!

Mustard Museum

On Saturday we spent the whole day together enjoying family time! Mitchell planned a really fun outing for us too! We visited the National Mustard Museum! I bet you didn't even know there was one! It is basically a mustard store with some mustard obsessed guy's collection of mustards from around the world in the basement. There was quite a lot of information about mustard and I was amazed at how many different flavors of mustards are out there. The coolest thing about the store/museum was that they let you sample any of the mustards they carry, as many as you want! It was pretty fun!...if you like mustard. :) Sorry I forgot my camera so the pictures are from my phone.

This mustard in the squeeze pouch is the same mustard we had on my mission in Argentina!! Brings back memories of the many ways I gained roughly 30 pounds in the southern hemisphere.

ONE of the walls of mustard

Ok this was just funny.

The rest of our fun family day involved a very long Costco trip to finish buying our food storage and get new tires. Then figuring out how to stash all of the food at home and relaxing together. Stay tuned for video of our army crawler. Crazy kid is mobile!

Toto We Aren't in Utah Anymore...

I was somewhat amused today at the funny looks I got as I loaded up a shopping cart FULL of non-perishables at the grocery store. It's time, actually past time, that Mitchell and I got our food storage in order again. If only the disbelieving onlookers knew that I will probably be buying up 2-3 times this amount of food at Costco this weekend. Haha, oh well. I suppose it is a bit unorthodox to buy so much food at once...weirder still to line it all up and take pictures at home. The lengths I will go to to blog about something/someone beside the usual star of the show. :) Speaking of her, here she is!

I walked in to the living room the other evening to find the 2 loves of my life sitting on the couch together reading their books. It was so sweet! Audrey has been enjoying her daddy time a lot lately!

Audrey is getting the hang of eating and she is really starting to love it! She so far devours rice cereal and avocado. Next up butternut squash or peas?

A friend of mine loaned me a book about developing good sleep habits for kids. She swears by it so I decided to start reading it. Audrey has never been a terrible sleeper by any means but I could use some more snooze so I thought I would see what advice the author has to give. One of his main points of emphasis is to put babies to bed very early. Audrey was going to bed about 9:30-10:00 a few weeks ago. As an experiment we started putting Audrey to bed at 8:00 and found that the first few nights she cried for 15-20 minutes or so before falling asleep. After that she cried less and less and gradually over the last couple of weeks she herself has started showing signs of being ready for bed between 7:00-7:30. We just watch for her signals and put her pajamas on and put her in bed. She now goes down really easily and if she fusses at all she stops by the time we leave the room! Not only has this totally changed her attitude in the evening and at night, she is SO much happier and content during the day! She will even go down if Mitchell puts her to bed! In fact, last night I was doing the dishes and he noticed that she was getting tired so he put her pajamas on and sang her some songs and put her down before I even realized what he was up to! That was a great moment in marriage and parenting!

My girl sure loves playing on the floor! Her mouth is open because she was screeching with delight at having sneakily removed her slippers...for the hundredth time yesterday!

Indian Summer

I had never heard the term 'Indian Summer' before I moved to the midwest. For any one else who might not know what that means I will define it. An Indian summer is what it's called when the weather cools down in the early fall only to warm up again for a while. I have to say I like Indian summers! The last week or two have been in the 80's again and it is lovely! In fact, because we are also having relatively low humidity as well I have to say it's been nicer than the real summer. Audrey and I have been taking advantage of the great weather by taking daily walks out in the neighborhoods. (see previous post) Monday was quite warm so I let Audrey play in water to see how she liked it. She LOVED it! I put about an inch or so of water in the tray of her highchair and let her go crazy and she splashed and squealed and had a great time! Here is some footage...

This just in! Audrey has 2 items of new business to share just this afternoon! Look at her skills...

She can almost sit up by herself! She was using this toy bucket for balance.

The next series of photos are from this evening after Mitchell and I ate dinner. Audrey decided to have a little meal of her own. :)

"What is dad doing to that avocado?"

"I have a spoon, what's this thing for anyway?"

"Uh oh, Dad has a spoon too. And it has mashed up avocado on it."

"You actually want me to put that stuff in my mouth? Well...ok..."

"Um..."

"Mommy...what is happening? Is this ok?" (I was dying laughing by this point)

"There is something...something...different in my mouth..."

"I don't know about this, I don't think I like it"

"Well, ok Dad, if you say it's that good I will try again"

"Blech."

Mitchell says I am a mean mom because I can't stop laughing at her gagging on avocado. It was so funny! I'm pretty sure that she is just getting used to having a new texture in her mouth. Mitchell was pretty sure that she had taken her last breath. We'll keep letting her explore the world of solid foods at her own pace. I thought the avocado was a partial success. :)

Fall is Definitely Here

Audrey and I have been taking full advantage of the lovely fall weather we are having here in Madison. We take a walk around different neighborhoods every afternoon. It's a great way to enjoy the nice weather, the fall colors and check out the different areas near by. Maybe we will buy a house here someday? Who knows. I have some gorgeous tree photos to share, too bad it's nearly impossible to really capture the beauty of the landscape with a little point and shoot.

The above photo is my favorite street! Could there be anything more beautiful? Ok, yes there could...(see the below photos of my very beautiful daughter **smile**)

Audrey is growing up way too fast! Today when we were getting ready to head out on our daily walk she absolutely refused to be buckled in to her car seat. It clips on to the stroller so she is well supported and can look up at me. Well today she was having none of it so I tried just sitting her up in the stroller the normal way...like for grown up kids, not babies...and she loved it! I on the other hand am not sure I love it. I am so happy that she is healthy and growing and happy but I wonder where does the time go!?! She is just growing up way too fast! Believe it or not, next week she will be 5 months old. Wow. She drinks water from a sippy cup, she wears pigtails! Enough said. My baby isn't going to be a baby for much longer!

Lastly, Audrey went to the doctor this week. Here are her latest stats:

Height: 25.5" 80th percentile

Weight: 14lb 5oz 50th percentile

Head Circ. 40.1cm 14th percentile